Confirmed: Halo 2 coming to the PC, Vista only
by Conrad Quilty-Harper 
{ Feb 9th 2006 at 1:00PM }
Looks like
the BBC News leak was for real
folks. In a press release, Microsoft confirms that a Windows Vista exclusive version of Halo 2 is coming.
There's no specific release date, which isn't surprising considering Microsoft's on-going delays of a retail version of
Vista. According to the release, the PC version will include all the maps from the Xbox original, plus the Multiplayer
Map Pack and what sounds like a custom map creation utility.In case you were wondering, this isn't the first time Microsoft has locked out gamers from running their games in older versions of Windows.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
C. Grant @ Feb 9th 2006 1:06PM
How long before someone gets this running on XP and earlier? Planned obsolescence and forced incompatibility sucks!
Chris @ Feb 9th 2006 1:07PM
Before you even say anything this is Vista only because it uses XNA and DX10.
so don't even start!
Nij @ Feb 9th 2006 1:08PM
Great news-- now let's just hope this is a better port than the original Halo was.
seifer @ Feb 9th 2006 1:09PM
.....boo-urns.
funny vids @ Feb 9th 2006 1:11PM
If this is bungie "Next Project", they are way off track.
Kajex @ Feb 9th 2006 1:13PM
Well, I'll just have to upgrade, then. I'm fairly sure my computer can handle Halo 2 for the PC. Yes, it is just furthering the business of Microsoft and ensuring that they will remain for another 1,000 years, but even if the corporation is evil incarnate, it's the best there is. Yes... I would rather they not have to make it so that it can be run on XP, but I'll defer if I must, or at least find a patch or something that will allow me to play it using XP.
someone @ Feb 9th 2006 1:18PM
That kind of locks down the people who are going to get the game because not everyone has top of the line systems, or computers that can run Vista. Why not include DX10 in XP and release Halo 2 for XP, rather than making people go buy new systems to run Vista on it... but its microsoft. They'll do anything for the money.
Jay @ Feb 9th 2006 1:23PM
Great. now if it could only make Halo 2 decent.
Kirk @ Feb 9th 2006 1:29PM
...or you could just buy an Xbox, and play Halo 2 right now. Not only is this move stupid, It's absolutely pointless. Do they expect Halo 2 to push Vista sales? HAHAHHAHAHHAHA!
SuicideNinja @ Feb 9th 2006 1:38PM
It's not really pointless...PC gamers have been whining about Halo 2 not being available for the PC since it came out. The original Halo wasn't any better on PC anyway, except for those lazies that use a mouse and keyboard.
Since Vista can have Media Center capability, why wouldn't you want it anyway? We're due for a new version of Windows...it's been a long time.
JP @ Feb 9th 2006 1:41PM
Where my Halo 2 for Linux?
elmer @ Feb 9th 2006 1:47PM
Chris:
Why in the Hell would it have to run in DirectX 10? It runs on the friggin' Xbox! a four(five) year old system!. My 2 year old laptop outclasses it, and it wasn't even very good. Xbox is built on DirectX 8 isn't it? XNA is supposed to make everything port to everything, not preventing things working. In fact I thought many of the features of DirectX 10 were making their way to XP, hence one of the reasons people are questioning the need for an upgrade to Vista.
Oh well, it's clear Microsoft don't have much faith in Vista's features pushing its sales on its own.
Jose @ Feb 9th 2006 1:47PM
Farking balshevik! You mean I've got to upgrade from Windows XP x64 bit edition to play this game. Lick my balls MS, at least I've still got all my steam games for single and multiplayer fun. Any current XP users up for some DoD: Source? It's free this weekend anyway!
King @ Feb 9th 2006 1:47PM
"this isn't the first time Microsoft has locked out gamers from running their games in older versions of Windows"
What's your point?....That's like complaining about not being able to play your DS games on your gameboy pocket.
Sometimes upgrades are necessary because of new technology. Plus I'm 100% sure Vista will sell with or without Halo 2. Remember this is MS, Windows has 90-95% market share.
Those of us that want to play Halo 2 will play it on Xbox and I'm sure the demand for Halo on PC is minimal compared to it on Xbox. I don't see people preordering Halo 2 PC and waiting for hours outside at midnight to pick it up.
CapAmerica @ Feb 9th 2006 2:01PM
I'll just wait for the Mac OSX port.
If you think about it once its released for the PC wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy a Xbox and a copy of Halo2?
Reytacular @ Feb 9th 2006 2:10PM
The Macintosh version better be $29 or less... $49 is too much for an average game like Halo 2.
Fist Of Konshu @ Feb 9th 2006 2:41PM
OK let's take a step back guys. Halo 2 was realeased on Nov 9th 2004!!!! That was a long time ago. To add another date in the mix, Vista will be lucky to get out the door until the end of 2006. That's a 2 year span. Why do we even care? There are plenty of other games that deserve our time more than an outdated shooter. If the last port is any indication then the graphics will be poor. The only thing that is worth getting it for is so that I don't have to use a thumbstick to try to aim. No Thank You. I'll stick with my CS and my UT and have a fine time. I'll not have to worry about how I am going to come up with the cash to upgrade so I can play a 2 year old game.
AndrewNeo @ Feb 9th 2006 3:33PM
#14: There probably won't be a Mac port, if it's Microsoft/Bungie doing the porting. There was a Mac port of Halo 1 because Gearbox did the porting and they could. Now, knowing that Bungie is originally a Mac-based gaming company, they -might-, but if Halo 2 is using DX10 for it's rendering (they would be rewriting the graphics code so it's not DX8 anymore from the xbox, most likely) then there's no way it'll be on the Mac. Halo 1 for PC was OpenGL so it worked on both.
NergiZed @ Feb 9th 2006 3:34PM
Halo 2 on PC would be cool, but it seems like I'm not buying it. It's on Vista, and there's no way in hell that I can run my programs I bought in China with it, for obvious reasons.
Plus Vista probably means I can no longer bit torrent from AnimeSuki, so no way I'm switching.
I think I'll wait for some talented "modder" to make Halo 2 work for the XP.
DOWN With Vista! Go XP!
Jago @ Feb 9th 2006 3:57PM
Umm...I swear some of you guys think that all they are going to do is port it. If they are SMART they will go back and rework the game to take advantage of new PC technology.
I know my PC is all set for Vista (AMD Dual Core 3800+, 2GB ram, SLI 7800 GTs)...now hopefully whoever does the PC port will actually optimize the damn game so it runs better then the original did.
dsub @ Feb 9th 2006 3:58PM
if it's coming out only for vista, I expect it to have extremely reworked graphics using all the new DX10 still like Shader 3.0 support, and the whole bit. If it's the same game graphically, but requires you to have DX10 and vista to run it, that's retarded.
dsub @ Feb 9th 2006 4:06PM
I don't understand what the big deal is about getting pissed because it would be available for XP. The reason it's not running on XP is because it's using DX10, which will only be available for vista. So essentially, next year when vista comes out...get used to games requiring vista, because that's the only way your gonna get DX10 which will start being required for games more sooner than later. I'm sure alot of developer's will have DX9 support at first, but if you want to get the most out of your game...your going to want vista and DX10. God I hope vista isn't like $300 when it comes out. That will be fucking retarded.
John @ Feb 9th 2006 4:26PM
"What's your point?....That's like complaining about not being able to play your DS games on your gameboy pocket."
Except that the DS is superior to the gameboy pocket, whereas xbox is inferior to PCs. The technology available now is more than capable of running H2. I can't believe anyone would think otherwise considering it came out 2 years ago for a system that came out 5 years ago.
Jago @ Feb 9th 2006 4:28PM
I thought Vista was comin out last this year?
Spencer @ Feb 9th 2006 4:43PM
dsub, don't swear, and for the name of all that is relatively sane, read the posts before you. Also, don't double post, it's just lame and shows how impatient you are.
John Bowlin @ Feb 9th 2006 4:48PM
Jago (#20), you're one in a million. No really, you are! There's precious few gamers that have rigs like that, and there is no option for most of us to upgrade to Vista. So for us, getting Halo 2 on PC means buying a new PC and an new OS. And let me tell ya, some game that will be 2 years old by the time it's out ain't worth that kind of expense. Be better to just buy a used Xbox and the Xbox Halo 2 if anyone even cares by then.
I would have been more impressed with Microsoft's supposed new focus on the PC if they had announced that Halo 3 was going to be a joint Vista/Xbox 360 simultaneous launch. THEN I'd say they're actually doing something for PC gaming. This Halo 2 announcement is just a slap in the face. An insult to PC gamers. Microsoft will learn that they will not revitalize the Windows platform as a gaming platform by throwing us table scraps like 2 year old console games.
SeriousKriss @ Feb 9th 2006 4:58PM
What serious PC gamer is really expecting Halo 2 anyway? We'll already have our hands full with games like Crysis, Ennemy in Sight, OPF2, Quake Wars, Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, UT 2007, Prey, STALKER, etc.
The PC version of Halo failed because console FPS don't really work well on PC (and also because it was very badly ported).
Psygnosis2097 @ Feb 9th 2006 4:58PM
By the time Microsoft manages to release Vista you can play Halo 3 on Revolution.
Mathias Pettersson @ Feb 9th 2006 5:10PM
This is nothing. Get back to me when it's Halo 3 for both platforms simultaneously. Same disc wouldn't hurt, "Your media wherever you want it" yadiyadi...
Pince @ Feb 9th 2006 5:19PM
*sigh* No big deal. Anyone who really wants to play halo2 that bad already has, and this is just too little too late. They will have to give the game some major add-ons to make it worth it for anyone interested in halo 2 for pc and apart from that, a two or more year old game simply wont hold up that well on a PC that is fully equipped to run newer games on Vista. If you have a PC with those capabilities and running Vista once its out, it seems likely that there will be much more enticing fare than Halo 2 in the PC FPS market.
Kat @ Feb 9th 2006 7:17PM
Not really in a hurry to switch to Vista myself, I'm currently setting up a computer with Vista Beta 2 build 5231. Not too amased really, the UI is very good looking, gotta give it that, but so far doing anything else on it has been unnecessarily difficult, and unless you switch everything back to classic panel mode all the advance options are hidden. Granted I've only been playing with it for about 3 hours, but it's yet to really wow me enough to make me actually want it. Same thing goes for Halo2, definitely not enough to make me want to put that much money into an upgrade and game. Making it Vista only is kind of rediculous too, it's not like computers running xp couldn't meet the same specs.
I'll wait until I really see something good come out of Vista before making that jump.
Jago @ Feb 9th 2006 8:38PM
SeriousKriss:
Keep waiting for STALKER...it got pushed back (again) to the end of the year and it wouldn't surprise me if it were to be pushed back to 2007.
JD @ Feb 10th 2006 12:27AM
considering Halo2 runs a 733mhz celeron with 64mb and DX7 or 8...I cant possibly imagine why on earth it needs directX 10, or vista.
Halo3 would have been the better choice to show off DX10/Vista
TaiZ @ Feb 10th 2006 1:08AM
Why would DX10 only run on Vista anyway? DX9 runs fine on Windows 98/ME, so I'm sure DX10 would run on XP. If MS would give some REAL reasons as to why they won't run on XP, then I won't have any problems.
DT @ Feb 10th 2006 10:39AM
Well for people like me who can't pay for xbox live because of the Credit card thing, this is perfect.
Jago @ Feb 10th 2006 3:04PM
"considering Halo2 runs a 733mhz celeron with 64mb and DX7 or 8...I cant possibly imagine why on earth it needs directX 10, or vista.
Halo3 would have been the better choice to show off DX10/Vista"
B/c they are more then likely going to be UPGRADING the engine and it's capabilities. There were alot of graphical problems with Halo 2 that shouldn't be a problem with more powerful PC.
Hushed Casket @ Feb 10th 2006 5:26PM
FYI: I've started some HALO 2 PC forums at http://halo2pc.org.
nuno @ Feb 16th 2006 7:13PM
ok frist all u have to do iz install xp on one drive to play halo 2 then install vista in a outer hard drive to run every thing els u have that cant run on vista its that easy just use two hard drives to do both of your needs its that easy people stop bitchin and u no dame well they goin to hack the fuck out of it and come out with patchs and cracks and bla bla.....
Rasputin @ Apr 12th 2006 12:35PM
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evb @ Jul 31st 2007 1:51PM
can u play it on an mac computer??????